Legislation that would allocate billions in federal funding to help pay for 911 call centers’ transition to IP-based, next-generation 911 (NG911) technology is overdue, although no NG911 bills currently are on the verge of being introduced

Many in the public-safety community have debated whether NG911 funding has a better chance of passing as a standalone bill or as part of larger legislation, and NENA chief Brian Fontes said there is still interest and support in updating 911 on the federal level

A fundamental problem associated with the 911 bills last year was the fact that they called for federal funding to support the transition to 911 but did not include proposed funding amount.

Making this funding-distribution task more difficult is that existing efforts to implement NG911 technology differ widely in states throughout the country. Some states have implemented initial steps like text-to-911 functionality, while other states have made little or no progress toward deploying NG911. As a result, funding needs can vary widely, based on the financial situation for each state.

This Week From The Rave Team

Read some of the stories our writers were most excited to share with you this week. To access all of our stories, check out our blog.

42% of U.S. Businesses will have Increased IT Budgets in 2019

The Spiceworks survey - “The State of IT 2019” - was conducted with the cooperation of 780 business technology buyers from organizations across North America and Europe. Slightly less than half of respondents came from the U.S., but these were the happier of the technology buyers - 42% stating that their IT budgets for 2019 were going to increase compared with 34% of technology buyers from Europe.

Emergency professionals are trained and prepared to deal with every unexpected situation imaginable. 9-1-1 serves as the incident command during times of emergency. They dispatch resources to the scene like first responders who are given essential information, follow procedures and work as a team. Self-Dispatch is when any person shows up to an active scene without being sent by 9-1-1.

On February 14 2018, the communities in Parkland, Florida were terrorized by the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School massacre. As the families tragically mark the one the anniversary this month, many citizens across the country are still wondering how this happened and what can be done to help prevent. While we’ll never have all the answers, official reports have been published detailing the events of that day. The Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Commission Report flags a myriad of issues across a wide spectrum, with the common theme of communication failures.

Rave in the News

Situational awareness is critical for a police officer, and when it comes to confronting a subject suffering from a mental illness or other behavioral issues, knowledge of the subject’s state of mind could help the officer de-escalate a possibly explosive situation. That’s what Kern County has provided for its law enforcement officers and first responders with the deployment of Smart911’s enhanced profiles that provide critical information on a subject’s mental health, addiction, and other issues that might aid the responder’s situational awareness.The new Safety fields added to the Rave Mobile Safety Smart911 technology help first responders respond to the homeless, transient and those with mental and cognitive issues or other problems that could complicate a response by law enforcement, fire or EMS.